- It took science 2,000 years to find the clitoris. In the history of sexual anatomy, the clitoris has long been dismissed, demeaned, and... misunderstood. Here is a view of the clitoris you've probably never seen.
Please visit our website to discover the latest advances in science and technology: http://bit.ly/30Z4ZpZ
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- Want to know whether the new coronavirus will spread or not? You have to know this one little number. The new coronavirus. SARS. MERS. Ebola...... whenever there's a new outbreak, scientists rush to calculate a number called the R0, or R-naught. Why? It’s been a critical part of the scientific effort to understand just how transmissible the new virus is. Here's how.
For more coverage of novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/the-new-coronavirus-outbreak-what-we-know-so-far/
Please visit our website to discover the latest advances in science and technology: http://bit.ly/30Z4ZpZ
Discover world-changing science with a subscription to Scientific American. Learn more: http://bit.ly/2RtR1cs

- There's a growing threat in the mountains thanks to climate change: glacial lake outburst floods. As the climate changes and glaciers melt, a... lesser-known threat lurks in alpine areas: glacial lake outburst floods. These events happen rapidly, releasing huge amounts of water with little or no warning. Unsuspecting communities lying in the flood path can suffer serious losses.
Researchers seek better ways to predict these outburst floods and mitigate their danger. Take a hike through the Swiss Alps with glaciologist Fabian Walter to learn about this phenomenon and our ongoing efforts to understand it.

- These ants use their powerful jaws to jump high in the air. Trap jaw ants produce the highest acceleration ever recorded in an animal of their... size when their jaws slam shut (and they fly into the air). Why do they do it?
More films by Biographic: https://www.biographic.com/
Video produced by Spine Films: https://www.spinefilms.com/

- This is what a lethal fire tornado looks like. Fire tornadoes are terrifying forces of nature. They're rare, but as wildfires become bigger and... more frequent, they may grow more common.
Thankfully, scientists are getting closer to predicting when and where these lethal vortices will appear. Read the full story this hellish phenomenon: http://bit.ly/2O4xJIK

- This space telescope can see black holes using the smoothest mirrors ever created. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was the heaviest payload to be... carried into space by a shuttle. It's been looking at supernovas, black holes and spiral galaxies for two decades. Observatory director Belinda Wilkes gives you a tour of Chandra's universe.

- This researcher created an algorithm that removes the water from underwater images. Why do all the pictures you take underwater look blandly... blue-green? The answer has to do with how light travels through water. Derya Akkaynak, an oceangoing engineer, has figured out a way to recover the colorful brilliance of the deep.

- Which foods are ultraprocessed? You might be surprised.. Many nutrition scientists blame overeating fats or carbohydrates for the world's obesity... pandemic. But new research points to “ultraprocessed” foods such as chicken nuggets and instant soup mixes that dominate modern diets. These foods seem to distort signals between the gut and brain that normally tell us we are full, so instead people overeat.
Read this month's feature story "A New Theory of Obesity" to learn more. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-theory-of-obesity/

- Scientific American Editors Build Saturn V Rocket LEGO Set. In the early morning hours of July 16, 1969, technicians at the Kennedy Space Center... loaded upward of 750,000 gallons of fuel into the 363-foot Saturn V rocket that would successfully propel the Apollo 11 spacecraft toward the moon. It would be one of 13 Saturn V launches between 1967 and 1973. This vehicle remains the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever in operation. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Saturn V’s famous flight, this month’s column focuses on all things Apollo 11. As for the rocket, pick up this 3.3-foot-high feat of LEGO engineering, which includes three removable stages, as well as the lunar lander and command module. Even with 1,969 pieces (get it?), it is by no means the largest LEGO set ever created, but it’s a handsome and fun tribute to one of NASA’s most accomplished workhorses of space travel.
Thumbnail graphics credit: NASA
Music by Sound Express, Getty Images

- Scientific American Editors Build Saturn V Rocket LEGO Set. In the early morning hours of July 16, 1969, technicians at the Kennedy Space Center... loaded upward of 750,000 gallons of fuel into the 363-foot Saturn V rocket that would successfully propel the Apollo 11 spacecraft toward the moon. It would be one of 13 Saturn V launches between 1967 and 1973. This vehicle remains the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever in operation. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Saturn V’s famous flight, this month’s column focuses on all things Apollo 11. As for the rocket, pick up this 3.3-foot-high feat of LEGO engineering, which includes three removable stages, as well as the lunar lander and command module. Even with 1,969 pieces (get it?), it is by no means the largest LEGO set ever created, but it’s a handsome and fun tribute to one of NASA’s most accomplished workhorses of space travel.
Thumbnail graphics credit: NASA

- Mapping the Mission. Modern satellite imagery and 3D modeling create a multimedia view of how Apollo 11 played out on the lunar surface
To... learn more, read the story here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mapping-the-mission/

- Resurrecting the Genes of Extinct Plants. Scientists at Ginkgo Bioworks have resurrected the smell of an extinct flower by putting together the... pieces of its DNA.
To learn more, read the "Ghost Flowers" by Rowan Jacobsen at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fragrant-genes-of-extinct-flowers-have-been-brought-back-to-life/
Editor’s Note (2/6/19): This video was originally published February 1, 2019. It has been reposted to correct a spelling error.

- Resurrecting the Genes of Extinct Plants. Scientists at Gingko Bioworks have resurrected the smell of an extinct flower by putting together the... pieces of its DNA.
To learn more, read the "Ghost Flowers" by Rowan Jacobsen at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fragrant-genes-of-extinct-flowers-have-been-brought-back-to-life/

- Are 2 Snowflakes Ever Identical?. Is the “unique snowflake” just flake news? Mother Nature might never produce two identical snowflakes,... thanks to the near-infinite variability of the conditions affecting ice crystal formation. But a Caltech scientist has developed a process for growing pairs of twin snowflakes.

- Scrubbing Carbon from the Sky. The first direct air capture and storage plant in the world is powered by geothermal heat in Iceland. Is it enough... to reach negative carbon emissions?
To learn more about this technology and others, read "Scrubbing Carbon from the Sky" by Richard Conniff at http://sciam.com/lastresort

- A Nobel Laureate Explains America’s Rigged Economy. The United States has the highest level of economic inequality of any developed country.... Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, explains why he thinks the American economy is rigged, and what that means for future generations.
To learn more about America's rigged economy and what we can do to fix it, read "The American Economy is Rigged" at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-american-economy-is-rigged/

- How Coastal Communities Are Already Retreating from Rising Seas. When it comes to the unsustainable development of the American coastline, New... Jersey owns the honor of being the first and worst. But one town in the state is experimenting with moving a cluster of people out of harm’s way and turning the newly open land into a flood buffer to protect the rest of the community.
For more, read "Surrendering to Rising Seas" at http://www.sciam.com/retreat

- How Can Scientists Help Make Cities More Sustainable?. Researchers have data. Corporate executives have innovations. Mayors have real problems to... solve. Yet these people do not necessarily understand how they can help one another make cities healthier and more productive. Enthusiasts from all three groups met at Springer Nature’s Science and the Sustainable City Summit held July 11 in Singapore to figure out how, together, they can create long-term livability and viability.
For more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-are-key-to-making-cities-sustainable/

- What Sensors Are in a Smartphone?. Smartphone sensors locate your phone in time and space. Working together, several sensors can paint a fairly... complete picture of your daily activity, with implications for your privacy.

- New Volcano Survey Accounts for Materials Ejected from a Volcano. Researchers used autonomous and remotely operated underwater vehicles to survey... the Havre volcano in the Pacific Ocean, leading to a new discovery about submarine volcano deposits.

- Breakthrough Prize in Physics Goes to Cosmos-Mapping Team. This year’s Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the team... behind NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, a space telescope that launched in 2001 to map the cosmic microwave background—the earliest, oldest light we can detect from the universe’s infancy. The WMAP team will split the $3 million award, with its leaders receiving the largest shares. One of those leaders, WMAP’s chief theorist David Spergel, sat down to speak with Scientific American about WMAP’s science and its legacy. Spergel is also a McArthur Fellow, a professor at Princeton University, and the founding director of the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York City.

- The Mad Science of Creativity. On October 17, Scientific American hosted a special event on creativity at The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York,... in collaboration with Springer Nature and The Story Collider. Watch scientists and others tell their favorite stories about the nature of imagination, intuition, inventiveness and other sparks of brilliance.

- Frog's Ribbiting Romance, Cosmic Speed Demons, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Explore the reasoning behind plants using water more... efficiently, the climate's impact on the same species of trees featured in the Karate Kid, what scientists are discovering through more reflective telescopes, the impact of earlier bird migration, the evolution of frog's hearing and the most energetic particle ever seen.

- Wild Dogs Sneeze to Vote. African wild dog packs have a sneeze democracy. When a dog tires of napping and is ready to hunt, they sneeze. If... enough dogs in the pack join in the sneeze vote, the whole pack sets out. Dominant individuals have influence, but the group can outvote their leader.

- Cannibalistic Caterpillars, Bats Bonking into Windows, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Discover why bats fly into windows, how caterpillars... help their species through cannibalism, what a star from six centuries ago reveals about celestial life cycles, how climate change is impacting the hampster-size rabbit relative that inspired Nintendos Pokemon mascot Pikachu, how destroying wetlands makes hurricanes more destructive, and how the U.S. Justice Department is battling Internet Hosting Company DreamHost over requests for information about people visiting a website for organizing protests.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata, Emily Schwing, and Larry Greenemeier.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6355/977
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/692734
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v548/n7669/full/nature23644.html?foxtrotcallback=true
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181834
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09269-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0231-6.epdf

- How to Explore Otherwordly Oceans. As NASA continues exploring other worlds across the solar system, tools deep ocean biologists use to study... communities of bacteria on the sea floor could come in handy. This short film dives into a new observatory called ABISS, which can transmit video and long-term measurements wirelessly from the bottom of the ocean at broadband speeds using a system of flashing lights.
For more information: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/prepping-for-alien-oceans-nasa-goes-deep/
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Cassini’s Grand Finale. The Cassini spacecraft has spent the last two decades exploring Saturn and its unique moons, making discoveries that... will advance space exploration for years to come. Scientific American editors Lee Billings and Mike Lemonick offer a proper sendoff for the historic orbiter.

- Polar Bear Treadmill, Eclipse Petroglyphs, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Discover how blue-bellied lizards get spooked by bright colors,... how drifting sea ice forces polar bears to walk farther to stay in their range, a device that could tell police when texting may have led to a car accident, how sharing your contacts with apps may lead to security risks, and carvings in Chaco canyon that could reflect an eclipse almost 1000 years ago.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata, Emily Schwing, and Larry Greenemeier.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/po...
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182146
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13746/epdf?referrer_access_token=ZyA-lI9zXToT0ZVBAMrsYYta6bR2k8jH0KrdpFOxC67kGHzndq_0n_bbNXOY94we0_kD0cq2UCEEmfhwGZjrjXN_oCsNqPn-wUwcg7lZIpfQ3okzSO-5tBttX6k9snAimwSfyzRdNY9YHMssZhqYFvCNDenkWkocgL-4RmpurvmEkp-dhtl2g1YGoDf6fUG5
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1701172
http://maajournal.com/Issues/2014/Vol14-3/Full18.pdf

- VR Theme Park Hopes to Push Public Pickup. VR World is a virtual reality theme park that presents curated video games and 360-degree artistic... cultural experiences in order to help the public overcome some of the barriers that have prevented mass adoption. The team wants to prime people for the VR experience as well as collect data to share with developers.

- What Is a Skin Allergy?. Poison ivy or a new perfume making you break out and itch? Your skin normally works as if in harmony to protect you from... infection, but sometimes the tune your killer T cells are playing is bad news for your skin cells.
Produced with support from SC Johnson. Learn more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/custom-media/scjohnson-transparent-by-design/

- Totality in Tennessee. Experience a total solar eclipse on a Tennessee farm during the Great American Eclipse of 2017. This timelapse shows the... sun and reactions of the viewers as the moon passes in front of the sun

- Becoming Cyborg. A new documentary explores the strange new world of the contemporary cyborg movement, and the people that add electronics to... their body to decorate themselves or give themselves extra senses.
By Cécile Borkhataria, Christine Low and Katya Berger

- The Mediterranean Diets Winners, Celebrities and Twitter Bots, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen to how a species of lizard seems to... have undergone genetic selection during a recent Southern cold snap, how the Mediterranean diet may only benefit the highly-educated or financially well-off, and the similarity between celebrity tweeting habits and bot Twitter accounts.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6350/495
http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/production_in_progress.pdf
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~szuhg2/

- Whistling Worms, A Computer that Can Identify Beauty, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn about the insects that make their... way into our bodies after we die, a computer that can suggest beautiful destinations to visit, how buying time might make us happier, how MRSA might have historically developed and what that might mean for drug-resistant diseases, a whistling worm that can defend itself against several bird species, and how humans are good at identifying emotional calls across the animal kingdom.
Reported by Steve Mirsky, Christopher Intagliata, and Karen Hopkin.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.analchem.7b01708
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/7/170170
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-017-1252-9
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1859/20170990

- Well-Preserved Armored Fossil Reveals Cretaceous Camouflage. The Cretaceous Period was a dangerous time for many animals, even for the... “dinosaur equivalent of a tank.” Watch how researchers analyzed the pristine remains of a heavily armored nodosaur to discover this dino’s additional layer of defense.
Subscribe to our channel: https://YouTube.com/SciAmerican

- Battery-Free Cell Phones, Political Lightning Rods, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn about the political nature of... lightning rods in the United States and United Kingdom, a new cellular phone that can draw power from the waves of energy around it, how the unique concentration of bacteria on the skin of Eczema sufferers can contribute to the development of the disease.
Reported by Steve Mirsky and Christopher Intagliata.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata, Steve Mirsky, and Emily Schwing.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://batteryfreephone.cs.washington.edu/files/batteryFreePhone.pdf
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/397/eaal4651

- Racing to a Future of Autonomous Cars. The Robocar, a fully autonomous electric racecar, recently debuted in Times Square, New York City. Watch... how the Roborace team behind it imagine a new motorsport and how the Robocar might accelerate the development of the consumer autonomous car.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Witness the Solar Eclipse without Frying your Eyes or your Camera. America is preparing for a sea-to-shining-sea solar eclipse. Here’s how you... can watch the spectacular display, and maybe even snap a photo to commemorate the event, without burning your retinas or damaging your camera’s optics.

- Soft Robot Moves by Mimicking Plants. A tough but flexible bot unfurls like a plant using a pressurized plastic tube to inch through rugged... environments.
Subscribe to our channel: https://YouTube.com/SciAmerican
Transcript:
A new soft robot grows like a tendril.
It unfurls from the inside to creep forward, stretching up to 72 meters away from its source.
The unique design reduces friction, letting the bot navigate complex environments without snagging.
It can handle everything from fly paper, to glue, to a bed of nails.
The bot can navigate like a plant toward the light.
It uses a camera threaded through the tube to calculate its course while small chambers inflate to steer.
Robots like this could be used in disasters.
It’s flexible enough to wiggle through tiny gaps, and light enough to “walk” on water. But strong enough to lift heavy objects,
and apply the force to turn a valve.

- Damaged Bears Find Solace in Rehab. Watch how Carpathian brown bears, scarred by the Eastern European tradition of training bears to dance for... entertainment, are being given the chance to live out their lives in an environment tailored to creature comfort.
Filmed on location in Synevyr National Park in Western Ukraine.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Watch a Wolf Pup Vet Visit. These eight-week-old Mexican gray wolf puppies got a clean bill of health at their first vet checkup this week. After... a spirited pursuit through the pups enclosure at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York, volunteers and handlers scooped up the animals for their vet visit. The veterinarian checked their teeth, their eyes, and their general health, as well as administered a wormer and first round of vaccines. The pups werent thrilled about the process, but since they are being raised in hopes of one day releasing them, a healthy dose of caution around humans would help keep them safe in the wild.
Subscribe to our channel: https://YouTube.com/SciAmerican

- Living With Wolves, Bogus Bed Bug Sightings, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn about how the misidentification of bed bugs... can costs hotels their business, the possibly advantageous effects of climate change-based migration of polar bears, the potential effects of the opioid crisis on those who depend on pain-killing drugs, and how we can alter our conception of wolves in order to give them the space they need to thrive.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata, Steve Mirsky, and Emily Schwing.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/63/2/79/3867364/Bed-Bugs-and-Hotels-Traveler-Insights-and?searchresult=1
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.7b00812
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15469

- Giant Model Mimics Damaged Dam Spillway. When the Oroville Dam spillway cracked and failed after a wet California winter, a team of scientists... created a one fiftieth–scale model of the damaged concrete and eroded hillside to help guide the reconstruction.

- Chimps Engage in Costly Quid Pro Quo. Chimpanzees have been known to cooperate when there is no foreseeable personal cost. Watch and learn... whether chimps are capable of riskier, more complex forms of collaboration.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Spotting Counterfeit Caviar, Macron Invites Trumped Scientists, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn how proposed budgets cuts... to the Centers for Disease Control pose new biological threats, how fitness wearables might be good measures of heart rate but poor trackers of calories burned, the benefit of trees over lawns in a thirsty Los Angeles, the indoor agriculture boom in Alaska, how counterfeit caviar can be caught with chromosomes, and newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macrons call for US scientists.
Reported by Steve Mirsky, Christopher Intagliata, and Emily Schwing.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/7/2/3
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016WR020254/abstract
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01768-3

- Why Do Allergies Make You Sneeze?. Do you suffer from allergies? Follow the dendritic cell and the entire Scientific American Allergy Orchestra... to discover how allergens from pollen to pet dander can change the body’s tune.
Transcript:
Sneezy? Itchy? Perhaps your seasonal allergies have your immune system playing the wrong tune. Your immune system is like an assembly of musicians, each with a job to do.
The dendritic cell—here played by the conductor—orchestrates a response to protect the body from invaders. Bacteria lurking? The conductor leads the anti-bacterial response. Virus? New sheet music, new program.
Unlike a bacterium or virus that could harm the body, an allergen is a harmless substance that fools the immune system into mounting an inappropriate response. The first time an allergen enters your body, a B cell—here played by a guitarist—reacts as if it is harmful. It secretes an immunoglobulin protein, IgE, which acts like sheet music.
This provides a program for future reference. IgE “music” is handed out to MAST CELLS in the lungs, intestinal tract, and nose. This music just sits on the stands. If the allergen never shows up again, nothing will happen. But if an allergen sneaks in, finds its matching IgE, and activates a mast cell…
The mast cell erupts.
Histamine and other chemicals flood the body, triggering a cascade of effects. They recruit other cells and chemicals to get involved in the same program. Cacophony. Blood vessels dilate and tissue swell. Mucus production r

- How to Weigh a Star Using Gravitational Lensing. Astronomers recently tapped Einsteins concept of gravitational lensing to determine the weight... of a distant star. Watch and learn how this concept came to be and how it works.
Subscribe to our channel! https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Searching for Life at the Bottom of the Arctic. Creatures living among the hydrothermal vents burbling under the Arctic Oceans ice layer have... been historically difficult to study, but an underwater vehicle, the Nereid Under Ice, can get close to the vents to peek in at the animals and their homes without disturbing their environment with icebreaking ships. Scientific American caught up with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution senior scientist, Chris German, on the R/V Neil Armstrong to discuss how studying these Arctic dwellers could shape our understanding of how life evolved.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Bees Seek Nicotine Fixes, Volcano Boosting Meteorites and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen in to discover how religion may have... contributed to chicken domestication, the new concrete recipes that could prevent cracks in the road, the tricks flowers use to keep bees coming back for more, and how early Earth’s pummeling from space rocks may have shaped volcanic activity on the planet.
Reported by Christopher Intagliata, Karen Hopkin, and Julia Rosen
Subscribe to our channel: https://youtube.com/SciAmerican
Related information:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JE005085/abstract
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01980-1
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958946516301603
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/molbev/msx142

- Wing Windows Reveal Insect Origami. Ladybird beetles fold their hindwings into a tidy, Z-shaped package under their bright spotted shell.... Scientists made a clear plastic window to peek in at how the wing folds upon itself.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican
Find the full study here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/09/1620612114.abstract?sid=9448a84e-dce2-4774-ae18-eb9904e5f180
Transcript:
A snap of the wings tips this overturned beetle upright. It then performs some hands-free origami to re-tuck its wings. Scientists didn’t know how a wing strong enough for flight could fold so neatly. A ladybird beetle keeps its hindwings sheathed when walking, lifting the spotted case –elytra- to unfurl the wings for flight. On landing, the wings pack themselves away. Since the wing folding process is hidden under the elytra, scientists replaced part of the case with clear plastic so they could peek in at the wing in motion. They tracked how the wing bent in upon itself like a Z and documented the 3D shape with X-rays. Thick veins work like tape springs. They store energy for quick deployment and stiffen to provide stability for flight. But bend like a hinge for compact storage. This insect origami could inspire folding gadgets like umbrellas or satellites.

- The Impact of Tiny Space Dust, Gophers vs. Volcanos, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn about how tiny particles of space... dust can have a major impact on our orbiting satellites, how resilient gophers managed to survive the Mount Saint Helens eruption and worked to restore the devastated ecosystem, the way insects transfer genetic material through non-sexual interaction, and the augmented effect that conventional plowing agriculture has on earthworm populations.
Reported by Steve Mirsky and Christopher Intagliata.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4980833
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/18/4721.abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13744/abstract

- Watch This Parrotlet Nail a Long Jump. This palm-size parrot uses a touch of wing to leap from branch to branch so it can save energy as it looks... for dinner or a mate.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- Tackling China’s Devastating Yellow River Floods. After learning how the waterway transports a billion tons of sediment into the sea each year,... scientists built a tool that may help predict the inundations that impact some 80 million people.
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/SciAmerican

- The Dangers of Noise, Digestion-Improving Chilis, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen and learn about the dangers of human-produced... sound in protected wilderness areas, how the molecule that makes chilis hot can reduce digestive inflammation, the return of the alewife herring to the revitalized Bronx River, and how air conditioner use in warmer months results in a massive increase in relative air pollution.
Reported by Steve Mirsky and Christopher Intagliata.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6337/531
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/19/5005.full
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b06201

- Mans Best Friend the Fox, Cave Dirt DNA, and More: 60 Second Science Podcasts. Listen to how foxes can be given a domesticated disposition... through selective breeding, why climate from 420 million years ago is set to return, how behavior can spread among humans like a contagion, the particular motivation of one marcher in the recent March for Science, what can keep a starving fruit fly fertile, and where ancient human DNA was just found.
Reported by Steve Mirsky, Julia Rosen, and Christopher Intagliata.
For more Scientific American Podcasts, visit https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcasts
Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SciAmerican
Studies reported:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14845
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14753
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2000862
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/04/26/science.aam9695

- Fish Released into the Revitalized Bronx River. The release of 400 alewife herring marks a significant milestone in a broader river cleanup... effort.
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Transcript: Wriggling through this transfer tube are 400 alewife herring. The Bronx River was once called an “open sewer.” But an extensive restoration effort has made the herring’s return possible. Alewives begin life in freshwater before swimming out to sea to mature. But they return to their freshwater birthplace to spawn. Dams on the Bronx obstruct returning fish. But now fish can summit the first dam thanks to a recently-installed fish ladder. Conservationists hope their efforts will make this urban river a major alewife home.